Honda Aircraft on 12 July opened its doors to the news media for the first time since the Greensboro, North Carolina, complex opened five years ago to reveal a massive, state-of-the-art business jet factory sized to support multiple programmes.
The 48,207m2 (518,894ft2) campus supports the HA420 light business jet programme, but the company's managers made little effort to conceal ambitions to grow beyond the five-passenger light jet after it enters service in the third quarter of 2012.
"I assume we're going to have another programme," said Alan Lawless, Honda's chief of flight test engineering. "After this flight test [programme] is done, we're going to be here a long, long time."
In a separate interview with Flightglobal, Honda Aircraft chief executive Michimasa Fujino also confirmed that the 1,900lb-thrust General Electric/Honda HF120 turbofan has plenty of room to grow.
The all-new core, which is based on a new centreline compared to the original Honda HF118, can be scaled up to 2,500lb-thrust, Fujino said.
A future Honda Jet product powered by such an engine would compete directly with the Cessna Citation CitationJet series and Beechcraft Premier 1. It may also provide airframers with a new alternative to the Williams FJ44 turbofan that ignited the light jet market after it first appeared 20 years ago.
But Fujino's focus is still on correcting the undisclosed supplier issues that have delayed entry into service for the HA420 by more than a year.
Despite signs of progress, Fujino acknowledged that some component suppliers warned they may be unable to support plans to deliver 30−40 jets in the first six months after certification.
Fujino declined to elaborate on the supplier issues, saying it was not a Japanese industry practise to embarrass struggling vendors.
But the company still aims to ramp-up production to between 70−100 aircraft/year on two production lines operating in the Greensboro facility by "closer to 2014". The nearly 24,471m2 production hangar is complete and almost empty. At the far end, workers are assembling a tool for joining the wing to the fuselage.
Honda's staffbase in Greensboro has grown by at least another 50% in two years, jumping from about 420 to between 600−700, Fujino said.
The company has not disclosed how many orders have been confirmed for the $4.5 million jet. In 2006, Honda launched the aircraft with a 100-aircraft backlog, and this remains the company's response to any questions concerning the backlog.
Source: Flight International
